Hello lovely hCGers. This interview is part of what is now a plethora of weight loss success stories with real everyday women (and men! There’s a few dude interviews in there) who have used either hCG injections or drops with the hCG diet protocol to lose between 20 and 150 lbs.

See all the hCG interview episodes
These are in-depth conversations one-on-one with hCG ladies where you get to hear their whole weight loss story and the tips that helped them succeed.

Read short written hCG testimonials
These are short testimonials of ladies who’ve written in their hCG diet results to me for quick motivation.

For this interview, get to know about Melissa’s hCG success story and her amazing strategies for continued weight loss!

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Melissa is awesome. She lost a LOT of weight in a short span of time, but more importantly than that, she went DIRECTLY into weight lifting and pursuing fitness to not only cement her new body, but to actually continue to shape it, now that she is of a healthy size, in a slower more sustainable timeline. This means that she has not only been maintaining her weight loss since November, she’s actually continued to lose, but not through just eating less calories, rather through strategic nutrition and weight lifting.

All in all she lost about 66 lbs while actually on hCG and over 20 lbs during her 2 phase 3 periods and another 30 lbs on her own through nutrition (which she got a macro breakdown to shoot for from a nutritionist tailored to her, and religiously tracks what she eat as in MyFitnesspal).

A few shots of Melissa’s muscle gaining results so far!

Additionally, Melissa has a fair amount of excess skin she is hoping to be able to remove at some point.

Round 1: She followed strict Simeon’s protocol with the 500 calories.
Round 2: She followed Lipman’s protocol and ate 700 calories and Lipman’s protocol which includes things like small cheeses and such.

Notice that in both rounds she lost basically the same amount of weight in the same amount of time, despite the slightly different caloric intake and food choices.
She used homeopathic drops for both of these rounds as well.

Physical Activity:

Initially when she still had a fairly large amount of weight to lose after her first round of hCG, she took up Aqua-Zumba – this was light enough for her joints to handle. After her 2nd round she felt good enough to start the weight lifting and now lifts 6 days a week.

This is something she does because she loves it and has goals to pursue competing in fitness competitions.

During Phase 3:

First several days of Phase 3 she added 100 calories every 2 days.
Worked up to 1000 calories – please note at 1000 calories per days, Melissa lost 10 lbs in 3 weeks on phase 3- this was not a maintenance level of calories for her.
Additionally she was exercising in P3- first with the Aqua Zumba after her first round, then with the weight lifting and some gym cardio after round 2.

Regarding WHAT she ate, she said mostly vegetables and lean protein- like chicken breast, pork loin, turkey breast etc. and that she DID actually incorporate a small amount of complex carbs in the form of sprouted grain breads like Ezekiel bread. Her calories were kept low and it appears this worked perfectly fine for her.
She says she had a bad reaction ground beef so was not eating that.

So where did this all lead? We all want to see this lady get to eat more than 1000 calories right??

Now in Phase 4

Melissa is taking this weight lifting life pretty seriously- and not surprising as her mom was a female body builder!
So in her bulking phase, she eats 1900-2000 calories per day.
In her leaning out phase her calories are just a little less, around 1700.
Her macro ratios change depending on whether bulking or leaning aka “cutting”.

Her Past Relationship With Food

Melissa dealt with Bulimia in the past which began in high school. She said she would lose 20-30 lbs purging, but of course gain it right back.

In asking her how she moved past this eating disorder she says she feels with this sort of thing you are never fully free of it in the sense that you still occasionally think to yourself, “I could throw this up” but you learn to refocus your energy and attention on something more positive and healthy (like weight lifting!) and make that choice to do the right thing for your body, not the wrong thing.

I resonated with her when she said she has an addictive personality and needs to fully DO and immerse herself in whatever she is pursuing- for people like us, replacing bad addictions with positive, healthy ones that put us in a better place, seems to be an approach that works well long term.

I too am this way.

Support to Get Through This Tough Protocol

She made major use of the YouTube hCG blogging community, which is still alive and active- it’s just new/different people – she feels this support she got by vlogging, watching other’s vlogs, and the communication back and forth was very important to the success of each of her rounds.

To find hCGers currently on YouTube, use search terms like the following:

Once you find a few vlogs of people who have made videos more recently, scroll through their comment feed and subscribe to those commenting on their vlogs – they are likely current hCGers as well.

Is hCG A Crutch For You? You Can Change It

Lastly, something that was close to her heart that she specifically brought up and wished to speak on in our interview is using hCG only as a tool, and not relying on it forever where it becomes a crutch.

I can’t get into all of it here, but she has some good things to say in our interview if you give it a watch/listen.

A recipe from Melissa for Phase 4:

Sweet Potato chips or Beet Chips

– Slice sweet potatoes or beet chips very thinly and toss with coconut oil. You can use cinnamon to make them sweet, or other spices to make them savory.
– Place spread out on a baking sheet, on the low rack, at 375 degree oven. She iterated to let the oven get nice and hot for about 10-12 minutes before putting them in.
I also liked this little tip because my son is sensitive to sugar also, but she says she has found Beet juice they make with their juicer to be very sweet and great for “sweetening” her son’s meals.

A few other Phase 4 treats:

Halo Top Ice cream – a low sugar ice cream option that’s amazingly yummy – has erythritol and milk protein and a much smaller amount of sugar than regular ice-cream.

Lenny & Larry’s protein cookies from Walmart

These products both contain some sugar, but a lot less than in a normal product, so for someone who is utilizing working out/weight lifting, can be (as it has been for Melissa) a food you can successfully incorporate in moderation. And again, in phase 4 only! 🙂

Rayzel didn’t use homeopathic drops so we don’t really recommend it. She doesn’t feel comfortable heartily recommending homeopathic hCG. One way it was brought up to her which she can’t ignore is that hCG is a real hormone and this question “would you take homeopathic birth control?” – She totally believes in homeopathy, but she just don’t know how that translates over to real hormones – real hormones are pretty powerful in what they do in our bodies, and so she doesn’t know if a homeopathic preparation is going to accomplish the same thing (ie homeopathic progesterone, testosterone). She thinks they are just different possibly. She could be wrong, but the only thing she feels more certain of are her results with the injections using the real hormone since she had all her body fat testing done with that and have maintained her weight loss 5 years now and eat pretty heartily. You can find her recommended real hCG sources here: hcgchica.com/buyhcg

This is a breath of new encouragement…I want to restart my HCG journey but for some reason I keep putting it off. My current excuse is I travel for work so I don’t eat while I work. I munch on a piece of bread or drink juice in the morning at 7am with my vitamins then wait to get home at 6pm to have dinner. Anyone have any suggestions for me?

Ok, im on my4th day of p2, im sooo hungry!!! I loaded very well for the first 2 days, and only gained 6 oz…..i called nu-image and they said this isnt a problem….my dose is exactally what Dr, Mike stated….please anyone have any suggestions…

Typically, if you are hungry (NOT around meal times) then your dose is too high. You need to lower it. If you are taking nu image recommended 200ml. then I would go to 175 ml see how you feel. Pay attention to when you are feeling hungry…is it more closer to after you’ve had your shot and less as the day wears on to night? Do you wake up hungry? Then continue to lower it by small increments. Like only 5ml at a time until you find your sweet spot. You may need to keep adjusting it as you lose. Hang in there! I started out at 175ml and now I’m down to 125ml (On 3rd round now) that works for me. Also, it could be that you are being too active. If you are too active your body will need more calories. Hope this helps! 🙂

Disclaimer- PLEASE READ! I am NOT a medical professional in any way, shape or form. I'm simply a mom sharing what has worked for myself and others. Any content on hcgchica.com should not be misconstrued as medical advice. It is your responsibility to speak with your physician about anything medical related.

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Note: This will add you to my newsletter which shares hcg diet help & sales with you from my 3 hCG sites: hcgchica.com, hcgchicarecipes.com, & P3tolife.com. Emails are generally 1-2x a week. Unsubscribe at any time!

Stay Connected.

Let's Get This Diet Thing DONE,

And move on to what you really want to do with your life.

I'd like to receive the free email course.

Note: This will add you to my newsletter which shares hcg diet help & sales with you from my 3 hCG sites: hcgchica.com, hcgchicarecipes.com, & P3tolife.com. Emails are generally 1-2x a week. Unsubscribe at any time!